Bellator CEO Rebney Confirms Season 6 Winner to Face Shlemenko for Middleweight Title in Fall

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney announced Wednesday on Twitter that
Shlemenko will square off with the winner of the ongoing Season 6
middleweight tournament to decide a new champion. The announcement
comes on the heels of the news that Bellator’s inaugural
middleweight titlist, Hector
Lombard, is headed for the UFC.

Shlemenko is a two-time Bellator tournament victor, most recently
conquering the Season 5 field last year. Just days after his
first-round knockout of Ikuhisa
Minowa at Super Fight League 2 in India, the hard-hitting
Russian was involved in a car accident in his homeland, suffering a
broken collarbone and dislocated thumb which will require several
months of rehab to heal.

On deck to face “Storm” are Season 6 finalists
Maiquel Falcao and Andreas
Spang, who will lock horns at a to-be-named event to close out
the season.

Falcao, 31, has won 12 of his last 13 fights, earning unanimous
decisions over Norman
Paraisy and Vyacheslav
Vasilevsky in the first two rounds of Bellator’s ongoing
tournament. The one-time UFC veteran owns 23 of his 30 career wins
by knockout and has been submitted just once in eight years as a
pro.

Spang answered Bellator’s call as a late injury replacement for
semifinalist Bruno
Santos, who withdrew from the tournament after suffering a
shoulder injury. The former Strikeforce talent did not disappoint
in his Bellator debut, delivering a second-round knockout of
Brian
Rogers at Bellator 66 to advance to the tournament finals.